What's a fair price for an ebook? (POLL)

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What's a fair price for an ebook? (POLL)

If one question has kept popping up this year, it has been "What's a fair price for an ebook?" Publishers have been putting their case for the prices they're asking. Writers have been explaining how cheaper ebooks are boosting their sales. Readers have been asking why there aren't bigger savings with no physical product to make, store and distribute?

Readers are what matter to me. Readers should be what matters to everyone in the trade, so I want to ask as many readers as possible what they think is a fair price for a digital book (writers, editors and publishers are readers too, so all votes matter). I know dollars, euros and pounds aren't exactly on a parity, but it's near enough these days, so read the price in whatever currency you're most familiar with (Sorry if you work in Bulgarian Levs or Polish Zlotys).

For all 3 questions let's assume it's a regular length book, that you're already interested in buying when you arrive at the product page and find out the price.

The more people who take part, the clearer the picture will be, so please tell everyone interested in reading, writing, publishing, books, kindles, iPads, Nooks and crannies, about this poll.

Hughes.

ADDITIONAL: If a dollar/pound is too rich for your blood, Joe Konrath is giving away a copy of Jack Daniels Stories as an experiment into book piracy and encourages you to steal the book, and tell as many people as you can to steal it too. Read his rationale and download the book from here... http://jakonrath.blogspot.com/2010/05/steal-this-ebook.html

*Sorry there's no euro symbol, euro friends, the poll code didn't seem to like it.

Tags » Nook amazon apple books ebooks ereaders iBooks iPad kindle poll price

30 May 2010
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almost 2 years ago (Facebook) responded:

I think most people want to pay $5 or less for an ebook. However, I think an indie just starting out needs to charge as low as possible to build up readership. Once they have a large enough and loyal following they can up the price a little, as long as it stays in that under $5 range.

People take a risk on me partly because it only costs them 99 cents to do so. It's not a big risk.

almost 2 years ago (Facebook) responded:

Yeah, I'm pleased with how generous most people seem to be toward new writers, although when offered free rein over a price things are more scattered.

I'll be interested to see how votes shape up as time goes on, the $/£5 mark seems to be most people's limit for new writers.

almost 2 years ago Victor Finch responded:

I've been pimping this all day! It really is surprisingly hard to get people to take a web-poll! Thanks to everyone taking part and linking to the poll.

over 1 year ago Warren Whitlock responded:

I've paid several times the top amount for a book and presume that the question is biased from asking which would make one "happiest"

Does a price point really control the enjoyment of reading? Dan O'Riely has proven that it does. People in a study paying MORE are generally more satisfied after the purchase.

Several of these studies were detailed in "Predictably Irrational"

over 1 year ago (Facebook) responded:

Hey Warren, that's wacky but true. I've had much fewer complaints since raising my prices.

And I own "Predictably Irrational". I haven't finished it, though. I need to!

over 1 year ago Warren Whitlock responded:

It's pretty well documented that humans to not make rational decisions. In Oreilly new book, there are even more examples of him doing irrational things while knowing that he wasn't rational.

We can't trust our senses, make emotional decision and then rationalize all sorts of silly behaviors.. such as creating a poll with a bias :)

over 1 year ago Victor Finch responded:

Hey Warren, thanks for coming by, I found your blog via Twitter last week. Very useful stuff.

I think you may have read too much into the word "happiest". The poll is purely to find out at what price someone decides "buy" or "don't buy" when they're about to click "Add to Cart". The perceived value effect is interesting, but if the price stops people from buying the book in the first place, the higher perceived value becomes a moot point, as, for that customer interaction it has ceased to be of value to either author, reader or vendor.

The "happiest" question is there to provide a medium between grudging payment of a high price and opportunistic payment of a very low one. If someone says "I'd happily have paid twice that much", the book is priced too low. I believe the "happiest" range is where writers should be aiming. It doesn't devalue the market, and it can still achieve broadly similar sales.

I personally think JA Konrath is pitching way to low with his notion that $2.99 is the new standard, and if anything, this poll has convinced me that most writers can get away with charging more than they have been, not less. Joe has the volume that means he can do fine at that price point, but if that became the standard, I think the whole market would suffer.

In retrospect, if you look solely at the pricing and not the polling, the poll does look somewhat bottom-weighted, mostly because the talk I was seeing around the pricing of ebooks, which led me to create the poll, had all been "cheaper, cheaper, cheaper!", and I wasn't seeing any call for a retention of higher prices, or an increase in prices. This may well be down to the silence of the satisfied, but the poll results seem to show this is the territory most people think ebooks should be inhabiting.

over 1 year ago Warren Whitlock responded:

When you use a word, the meaning to the reader is what matters. It's not the reader's job to figure out what the writer may have intended. We're all wrapped up in our own experience and baggage :)

Especially in a survey where we are asked to validate the opinions of the survey writer. I assume that every survey is biased, as it's impossible to be rational (my point before). However, the most common reaction to a weighted survey like this will be to ignore it.. leaving only those few who agree with the writer's mindset.

I say "only" but I"m wrong. It also attracts a few odd sorts like me who will make points in the comments :)

To justify my first Kindle, I went through the cost savings analysis, put it off for some time, the economics of saving a few buck per book just didn't seem worth it. I bought the device when a client said it was handy on long international flights (appealed to my ego's desire to get high priced consulting gigs) and finally justified it as "research"

The first book on Kindle was questionable.. I picked something low priced and rethought the purchase at lease 23 times while reading.. noticing the slight flicker while turning pages and adjusting the font several times.

By the end of that book, I was a convert. I know prefer to read on the Kindle and have paid nearly as much for a Kindle version as a real book. I still play the game of checking for used books, alternate sellers and check what the full price will be with the prime shipping plan from Amazon. We're all imprinted with a desire to save a few dollars.

What this survey has missed is the great value of any book at ANY of the price points we've discussed. The pleasure of reading great fiction, the ROI on a business idea, the knowledge that can improve one's life are all HUGE in comparison to the price of a book.

A good metaphor would be stays in hotel. You can sleep wherever you fall for free... a decent mattress in a abode of your own works out to be a few dollars per rest period at most, yet we pay well above the cost of changing sheets to stay in even the cheapest inn.. and hundreds or thousands depending on how we will be treated and where the bed sits.

Value is NOT the bits or ink. It's also not in the time or labor of the writer. Real value is in the mind of the reader.

over 1 year ago Victor Finch responded:

The word happiest is used entirely in the context of price, as this is clearly a survey concerned with price, not an esoteric study of the value of the whole reading experience, I'm not convinced of your view that that one word transforms some basic questions into a survey of reader contentment is widely held, but who knows :D

This was a poll I made because although lots of people were talking about pricing, nobody seemed to have officially asked the question on what people felt was fair. This selection of prices was chosen because they were ball-park of what people seemed to be talking about, so the bias is crowd sourced and doesn't represent any opinion. Well, that, and I was tired of typing out numbers after the first polling site I used wouldn't embed with Posterous, and I had to start again.

The issue of a broader value for the reading experience, and the effect that perceived value has, is interesting, and it's definitely a poll I'd vote on if someone made it, but that's not the question I wanted an answer to, so it's not the poll I made here. I have no idea how you'd poll for something as nebulous as the value of reading pleasure, or the value in the mind of the reader. It seems more that this isn't the survey you wanted it to be, but it is the one I wanted it to be, and, as I say, if people don't buy the book in the first place, the perceived value for all involved is zero.

over 1 year ago Warren Whitlock responded:

you don't have to agree with what readers think. I was just suggesting that you also can't tell us what to think :)

As for "happiest price" for me. If you ask what makes me happy, I'd say ZERO. Although studies show that we are happiest long term with things that we pay for.

I choose words carefully when I'm asking for opinions. "What would you pay?" and "What would make you happy?" are very different. "Which of these do you think would sell best?" would be very valid for the list in this survey but I'd still suggest that "Other" would be appropriate.

Still don't get what end objective was here. If this discussion is not the appropriate place to discuss the value of books, or how to get paid for our writing, then what good is it?

I for one have enjoyed the discussion and picked up points I'll use in presenting on book marketing and promotion.

over 1 year ago Victor Finch responded:

Of course, what else are comments sections for, if not disagreeing? :)

I chose happiest because I wanted a broad tipping point. Beyond that, some people will still buy, but are less happy because of the price they paid, which I feel is the point where potential buyers start to fall away.

The balance is finding the sweet spot between losing out through charging too little, and losing out because people decide not to buy. The discussion you propose is also valuable, but much broader than my simple desire to find out where independent authors can pitch their work to maximise return whilst still attracting as many readers as possible. I'm not sure I'd even know how to word a poll for that. :)

over 1 year ago Warren Whitlock responded:

I hold that a poll will never get you the right answer.. even if those polled are your likely market.

Adding bias and people not intending to purchase make a poll irrelevant

The best way to gauge a market is to test. Alternating pages so that every other user see one of two prices with everything else the same. Anything else is entertaining speculation

over 1 year ago Victor Finch responded:

If someone does a more scientific test, I'll be gad to see the findings, but at the time I made the poll, these were questions nobody else seemed to have asked, but which many people were writers and readers were discussing. If nobody else is asking questions you think need answering, you have to ask them yourself.

over 1 year ago Warren Whitlock responded:

actually, we do such tests on every project. When I speak here, I'm talking in generalities because every market, product, story comes out different.

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